On the Tip of the Tongue

2015

The different video works in the series On the Tip of the Tongue – Some of my favorite Songs redefine and crystallize a moment of setting up or interruption of a sung number, almost entirely cancelled by the editing (with sometimes the exception of the first notes sung), but which is nonetheless a piece of anthology in the history of cinema. In this sense, they participate of the idea of ​​the possible presence in the mind of the spectator of hooking points able to relay, through the images presented, the tunes of the repertoire with which the films excerpts are associated and any difficulties in restoring them, whether immediately or in their entirety.

The back and forth movements in the material of the sequences that structure each of the video editings tend to materialize a form of success or failure in this endeavor. In this sense, they help to illustrate the faculties of memory to bounce back from fully identified images and to summon their narrative framework, or, on the contrary, despite the recognition effect to which they could be the object, to inexplicably put up a form of resistance. The different proposals thus reflect the propensity of our memories, or our knowledge, to be exposed in a particular context of perception to orient the approach and interfere with it or, on the contrary, to block our vision by the only difficulty in finding some informations.

In all the songs mentioned, it is a question of passage, of the process of repetition or of the fluidity of Time. The back-and-forth structure of the editings indirectly enters into dialogue with these contents to propose forms of application or failure where the logic of the sequence of actions, or even the function of the gestures which structure them is blurred by recovery or dilution games.

Time unfolds and folds in superimposed layers, in a movement of closure with the effects of engulfment. It freezes despite the sustained and sometimes fluttering rhythm of the shots, marking the intensity of a moment of preparation or waiting, the imminence of an exchange or a meeting or contributing, like our memories , to underline the astounding effect afterwards.

Based on these different proposals, the series articulates micro-editings where the different hidden songs appear to be exhibited in a fragmented manner through a few tirelessly repeated phrases. However, the process of uttering words appears to be similarly blocked, as if memory was still failing and struggling to follow the few words spoken.

This inability to take up these emblematic songs from the cinematographic repertoire that the various editings tend to formalize indirectly introduces the question of copyright inherent in the practice of found-footage. It marks not without a form of irony the absurd refusal of legal authorization for reproduction and appropriation of these elements of our collective memory (which have become more and more sensitive through the elimination of certain downloads or video excerpts on the internet). It illustrates in its own way a form of censorship and expresses how it can obstruct the process of learning and creating.

Water Bucket
(2015)

Blink
(2015)

Hey!
(2015)

Alcools
(2015)

Bloom and Grow
(2015)

On ne choisit pas son public
(2015)

Coda
(2015)

Under the Bridge
(2015)

Don't Sit on Table
(2015)

Copyright © 2016 Laurent Fiévet